Cold with sunny intervals.

They are trying to frighten us again. 

“Arctic blast incoming! Britain faces a 383-mile blizzard as temperatures to plummet to -10C: Map reveals where 5cm of snow is set to fall with yellow warnings coming into force!” 

Of course using the number 5 makes for more impact than telling us that 5cm is less than 2 inches, not enough snow to wet your toe caps. But never allow truth get in the way of a good click-bait headline. 

It’s no surprise that hardly anyone buys newspapers nowadays, instead preferring to find alternative news and current affairs outlets on the Internet where an enquiring mind can delve into a wide spectrum of views and opinions rather than to read constant lies and propaganda. 

Rant over and excuse the pun but the headline cut no ice with me as I headed out on Sunday morning into the rising sun as a thin layer of ice swished from the windscreen. 

Into the morning sun

 

A pair of Stonechats greeted me at Gulf Lane where three parked and icy cars told me that wild fowlers had set out very early towards the marsh. The female Stonechat was more accommodating than her pal who maintained a safer camera distance.

Stonechat

 

I headed down Moss Lane where I hoped there might be a few Fieldfares looking for the last of the now threadbare hawthorns. Yes, and even a few Blackbirds temporarily losing their shyness to grab a few juicy red ones. 

Blackbird

Fieldfare

Constant traffic, including sizeable farm vehicles, made the birds flighty and skittish with 30 or forty chuckling Fieldfares flying off and then returning within minutes. The light was poor for pictures so I set off in search of other birds, promising to come back with sunshine. 

Almost at the corner of Jeremy Lane a male Hen Harrier flew across in front of the car and carried on over the fields towards Glasson Dock/River Lune. It could end up almost anywhere, this one of two harriers, a male and a ringtail both seen with regularity and ranging across a large area for three or four weeks now. According to our Government Ministers, Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

“Hen Harriers have enjoyed a better breeding season in 2023 whereby 141 chicks fledged successfully, the seventh successive year of population growth with 54 nests observed across the upland areas of England including County Durham, Cumbria, Lancashire and Northumberland."

https://deframedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/18/encouraging-population-growth-for-hen-harriers-as-141-chicks-recorded-in-2023/ 

Alternatively, a search on the Internet finds “Raptor Persecution” telling us that “2023 has been the worst year for the illegal killing of Hen Harriers on grouse moors since the ludicrous DEFRA / Natural England hen harrier meddling trial was given the green light in 2018”. 

https://raptorpersecutionuk.org/2023/12/11/2023-worst-year-for-persecution-of-hen-harriers-on-uk-grouse-moors-since-brood-meddling-began/

Dear Reader. DYOR - Do Your Own Research and make up your own mind. 

I turned the car around around and tried again but the light was no better for Fieldfares hiding in the Hawthorns. 

Blackbird

Fieldfare

 

Further up the lane I found 40 or more Whooper Swans and several Bewick’s Swans.  At Cockersands, 4 Cattle Egret, several Reed Buntings, 8 Goldfinches, 15 House Sparrows and a Barn Owl. 

Barn Owl

Whooper Swan

Starling male

 

 And yes, the sun came out again.  Maybe next week too, despite the Arctic Blizzards set to engulf us. 

 

Who’s Next? Follow The Money.

A new study has found that humans have wiped out around 1,400 bird species - twice as many as previously thought, with major implications for the ongoing biodiversity crisis. 

Many of the world's islands were previously untouched paradises, but the arrival of people to places like Hawaii, Tonga and the Azores led, over time, to far-reaching impacts including deforestation, overhunting and the introduction of invasive species. Consequently, bird species were wiped out. 

While the demise of many birds since the 1500s has been recorded, our knowledge of the fate of species before this relies on fossils, and these records are limited because birds' lightweight bones disintegrate over time; this conceals the true extent of global extinctions. 

Researchers now believe 1,430 bird species, almost 12 per cent, have died out over modern human history, since the Late Pleistocene around 130,000 years ago, with the vast majority of them becoming extinct directly or indirectly due to human activity. 

The study, led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) and published in Nature Communications, used statistical modelling to estimate the undiscovered bird extinctions. 

Lead author Dr Rob Cooke, an ecological modeller at UKCEH, - "Our study demonstrates there has been a far higher human impact on avian diversity than previously recognised. Humans have rapidly devastated bird populations via habitat loss, overexploitation and the introduction of rats, pigs, cats and dogs that raided nests of birds and competed with them for food. We show that many species became extinct before written records and left no trace, lost from history." 

Dr Søren Faurby of the University of Gothenburg, a co-author of the study, adds: "These historic extinctions have major implications for the current biodiversity crisis. "The world may not only have lost many fascinating birds but also their varied ecological roles, which are likely to have included key functions such as seed dispersal and pollination. This will have had cascading harmful effects on ecosystems so, in addition to bird extinctions, we will have lost a lot of plants and animals that depended on these species for survival." 

Observations and fossils show 640 bird species have been driven extinct since the Late Pleistocene period, 90 per cent of these on islands inhabited by people. These range from the iconic Dodo of Mauritius to the Great Auk of the North Atlantic to the lesser-known Saint Helena Giant Hoopoe. 

Dodo -a painting of the late 1620s by Roelant Savery.  

 

Great Auk - Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

But the researchers estimated there have been further 790 unknown extinctions, meaning a total of 1,430 lost species. 

The scientists say their study has uncovered the largest human-driven vertebrate extinction event in history, during the 14th century, estimating that 570 bird species were lost after people first arrived in the Eastern Pacific, including Hawaii and the Cook Islands, nearly 100 times the natural extinction rate. 

They believe there was also a major extinction event in the ninth century BC, primarily driven by the arrival of people to the Western Pacific, including Fiji and the Mariana Islands, as well as the Canary Islands, and highlight the ongoing extinction event, which started in the mid-18th century. Since then, in addition to an increase in deforestation and spread of invasive species, birds have faced the additional human-driven threats of intensive agriculture, pollution and leisure activities.  

Previous research by the authors suggests we are at risk of losing up to 700 additional bird species in the next few hundred years, which would be an unprecedented human-driven decimation of species. But Dr Cooke points out: "Whether or not further bird species will go extinct is up to us. Recent conservation has saved some species and we must now increase efforts to protect birds, with habitat restoration led by local communities." 

The study team based their modelled estimates on known extinctions and the extent of relevant research effort in regions compared to New Zealand. The country is the only place in the world where the pre-human bird fauna is believed to be completely known, with well-preserved remains of all birds there. The fewer studies in a region, the more incomplete the fossil record is expected to be, and the greater the number of estimated undiscovered extinctions. 

Journal Reference: Rob Cooke, Ferran Sayol, Tobias Andermann, Tim M. Blackburn, Manuel J. Steinbauer, Alexandre Antonelli, Søren Faurby. Undiscovered bird extinctions obscure the true magnitude of human-driven extinction waves. Nature Communications, 2023.

Saint Helena Giant Hoopoe by Michael Brett-Surman

“The first evidence of the Saint Helena Giant Hoopoe was discovered in 1963 by the British zoologist Philip Ashmole in the Dry Gut sediments east of Saint Helena. Ashmole found a left humerus, but assumed it to be of a Common Hoopoe, due to remarkable similarities to known hoopoe species. However, further research in 1975 by American palaeontologist Storrs L. Olson unearthed more remains, including shoulder parts, skull elements, and the left femur, which prompted a re-examination of the older evidence and the nomination of a new species. The British Museum of Natural History, as of 1977, was in possession of at least one femur from a Saint Helena hoopoe, slightly larger than Olson described in the nominal paper.” 

When current day leaders and politicians are caught out following a crisis, a misdemeanour or a disaster they inevitably repeat the shop-worn phrase “lessons will be learnt”. Sad to say that history teaches us  that lessons are rarely if ever learned and that as a society we just commit the same mistakes over and over again, like lemmings over a cliff.  Given the greed and corruption of modern times it is impossible to see how we can escape further extinctions, including in time, homo sapiens. 

Do enough people care?  No. Follow the money.

Linking at weekend to Eileen's Saturday

Back In The Old Routine

It’s the routine excuse too; the weather - relentless rain, stormy wind and endless grey days take the rap for my lethargy in neglecting the blog. Three weeks have flown by, twenty one days which included Christmas, New Year and all that entails and where the few remaining days were of the type where even cats and dogs stay by a roaring fire. 

But now in 2024 and following a rare sunny beginning I left Sue with a cup of coffee and her laptop catching up with soaps while I set off for a spot of birding. Maybe I would nab a few pictures during a few hours without wind or rain? 

Things kicked off well near Pilling Village, a roadside Kestrel, one of the pair that live most years at a nearby farm. In some years there will be Barn Owls at the same location and where the two predators exist side by side because their respective lifestyles and feeding requirements do not clash. 

Kestrel

 

I spent a little time at Conder Pool where the erstwhile “pool” now resembles Lake Coniston following five months of rain and where the expanse of deep water means that birds, mainly wildfowl, can keep their distance from curious camera-carrying birders. At best, 50+ Wigeon, 80+ Teal, 6 Tufted Duck and 8 Little Grebe. A single Little Egret in the creek where the water is more suited to wading than the “pool”. 

I found 15-20 Linnets above Glasson Dock in their yearly haunt alongside the village hall on the edge of the Lune/Glasson marshes. But less than a score of Linnets in now the coldest months of the year is a lowly total for a location that can record 200/400 Linnets. The species seems low in numbers at the moment and perhaps there are many yet to arrive from the colder parts of Scotland if and when the predicted cold snap arrives.

Linnet

 

A look towards Cockersands proved the most productive time of the morning with first a Barn Owl exiting a building before taking a quick circuit of the nearby marsh. When I drove around the corner to see where the owl had gone, there it was,  sat along the fence line before it headed off again, this time out of sight. 

 

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

 

At my parked gateway spot were both Grey Wagtail and Pied Wagtail, also 15-20 House Sparrows and 70 or so Starlings. The bright sunny morning had sent the Starlings into song and conversations, melodies that included Redshanks, Curlews and others. 

 

Pied Wagtail

Starlings

 

“Starlings are really excellent at mimicking the sounds of other birds and, in fact, any other sounds they hear in their environment. While maybe occasionally the mimicry is spontaneous, mostly it is carefully practised and woven into phrases, which are then arranged into songs"

  

Along Moss Lane I saw and heard small numbers of Fieldfares alongside the roaming Starling flocks. Because hawthorn bushes are now stripped of berries any remaining Fieldfares now use the Starlings to their advantage and join in searching for earthworms in the still saturated fields. 

Fieldfare and Starlings

 

In a field at near Moss Lane junction were 4 Cattle Egrets, almost certainly the same four reported in recent days in this area and further afield, sometimes in twos, other times as a foursome. 

Cattle Egret

I made for home and my own hot coffee. Join me again soon for more birds and photos on Another Bird Blog.